Commentary on the NRW election: Habeck is the new shadow chancellor
Created: 05/15/2022Updated: 05/15/2022 7:47 p.m
By: Georg Anastasiadis
Hendrik Wüst (CDU), Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, voting on Sunday.
A commentary by Merkur Editor-in-Chief Georg Anastasiadis.
© Guido Kirchner/dpa/Klaus Haag
The success of Henrik Wüst (CDU) in the North Rhine-Westphalia election means a serious setback for Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The triumph of the Greens makes Robert Habeck the new strong man in the traffic light coalition.
A commentary by Georg Anastasiadis.
The shadow of Putin's attack on Ukraine hung so leaden over the NRW election campaign that the elections there can certainly be described as a war election - with a clear result: forces with the Left Party and AfD were punished, which the voters suspected of secret cronyism with the criminal stand in the Kremlin.
Equally unsuccessful was SPD Chancellor Scholz's attempt to fish for the voices of the fearful by talking about a possible nuclear war.
This is a strong sign of the democratic maturity of the voters: in times of war and peace and also personal insecurity, they reward compass and firmness.
It is no coincidence that the Greens on the Rhine and Ruhr were the reward for the party that opposed the Kremlin's breach of civilization like no other in the traffic lights.
Habeck manages where the chancellor fails
This catapults the Green Economics Minister Robert Habeck into the role of Berlin's shadow chancellor: he succeeds where the chancellor fails - to explain his policies to the citizens, to take them on a journey whose goal is far away and which will still demand many sacrifices from the people.
The foreseeable black-green coalition in Düsseldorf puts him in a strategically strong position vis-à-vis both old mainstream parties.
The SPD will rightly blame the chancellor for the crash to the historically worst result in its heartland;
because at the same time the anger at Scholz and the traffic lights is growing in the severely beaten FDP, their crisis is programmed.
Opposition leader Friedrich Merz is fine.
His long-time rival Angela Merkel is almost forgotten in the CDU.
Although this also applies to Armin Laschet, he did at least one last service to his party when he gave his successor Hendrik Wüst a short official bonus in the Düsseldorf State Chancellery.
Some in the Union are now wondering what would have happened if Merkel had done the same thing in 2018 and given up the chancellorship with the party chairmanship in order to save her CDU power.